Video war clouds Kashmir’s social media landscape now

The battle of videos in the Kashmir Valley intensified on Sunday when a grainy cellphone video of a supporter of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) apologising profusely and shouting anti-India slogans at gunpoint went viral.

In the video, the petrified Kashmiri man, Wali Mohammed Bhat, is heard saying he has long quit all political activities.

In a similar video, a group of securitymen is seen pinning a youth in a red vest to the ground. His hands are tied behind his back, and the men are beating his legs with sticks. He screams: “Paani… maafi (water... mercy).”

The two clips were uploaded on social media on Sunday and quickly became the most shared, watched and commented items online in militancy-riddled Jammu and Kashmir as well as the rest of India.

These are from a long line of videos showing the two stark realities of Kashmir — alleged atrocities of a hardnosed establishment trying to bulldoze the insurgency, and the threats, brickbats and stones that people on the non-separatist side of the political divide face in the Valley. The troubled region’s pro- and anti-separatist battle is fought through videos — a quickreaction psychological weapon that is exploding on social networks more often lately, especially after the protest-blighted by-elections to the Srinagar parliamentary seat on April 9.

At least eight people died in the unrest and hundreds were wounded as security forces fired at and caned crowds that tried to disrupt the bypoll in response to a separatist call to boycott the democratic process.

The video of an armed CRPF trooper being kicked and booed by a group of youth when he was returning from bypoll duty with his colleagues became a nationwide television debate.

The men in uniform do nothing to the hecklers. They walk on. Their action is peddled on the loop in national television as an epitome of restraint shown by the armed forces.

The tide turns on April 13 as another explosive clip surfaced. It shows security forces firing at a group, mostly children, throwing stones.

VIDEO OF A PETRIFIED PDP SUPPORTER SHOUTING ANTIINDIA SLOGANS AT GUNPOINT AND APOLOGISING HAS GONE VIRAL